Best Galaxy Note 7 cases: Protect your new Samsung device

Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 is the latest smartphone to join the company’s 2016 flagship portfolio, sitting alongside the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge, and it is stunning.

The new smartphone takes its design cues from the Galaxy S7 edge, bringing a beautiful curved glass front and back that is symmetrical from almost all angles.

The Galaxy Note 7 adds a few millimetres onto the footprint of the S7 edge, as well as an iris scanner, USB Type-C and the all-important S-Pen stylus. It’s also a little squarer in shape, distinguishing it as a Note device.

As we all know though, while glass and metal look fabulous, keeping them looking new after a few months is no easy task and unfortunately, something that is almost impossible without a case to help.

Yes it’s a shame to cover up a lovely design, but it’s a bigger shame to see that lovely design get scuffed, scratched and bruised while you go about your daily business. Samsung has numerous official cases and accessories for the Galaxy Note 7, which you can find in our separate gallery, but there are also some third-party options out there.

We’ve rounded up some of the best Galaxy Note 7 cases we have found so far, but we will continue to update this feature as we find more. No doubt there will be plenty more appearing as 2 September launch gets closer.

Click here to see the best Galaxy Note 7 cases we’ve discovered so far

Manchester United vs Everton to stream live on Facebook

Wayne Rooney has announced that his testimonial to be played tonight will be screened live on Facebook. Manchester United vs Everton will be hosted on both Rooney’s own Facebook page and United’s.

There have been a few matches to be shown via Facebook before, with some early rounds of the FA Cup having screened in the past, but this is understood to be the first match between Premier League clubs.

The match kicks off at 8pm but the stream will start at 7.15pm. It’s a pre-season friendly match between Rooney’s first and current clubs, but proceeds from ticket sales and other revenues will go to the Wayne Rooney Foundation.

That supports several charities and services that help young people and children, including Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and the NSPCC.

“I’m delighted to give my fans around the world a chance to watch the game as we try to raise as much money as possible for the Wayne Rooney Foundation. Thanks for your support,” wrote Rooney on his Facebook page.

You will also be able to watch the match live on BT Sport.

The full Premier League season starts on 13 August with the Hull City vs Leicester City game marking the launch of Sky’s new 4K service for Sky Q Silver customers.

Gogoro brings on-demand scooter rentals to Berlin

Taiwan-based electric scooter company Gogoro is expanding its reach and business model. Today it announced a partnership with Coup (a subsidiary of automotive-parts supplier Bosch) to bring 200 on-demand rental scooters to Berlin.

The Coup sharing service works similar to Scoot and ZipCar. Potential riders can find and rent Gogoro’s Smartscooters via an app and ride them in the city’s Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg neighborhoods. One they reach their destination, they can end the rental and leave the bike for the next customer.

The bikes are available to anyone 21 and over with a regular drivers license. But, the scooters are regulated to 45 KPH (28 MPH). The cost is €3.00 ($3.37) per 30 minutes or €20.00 ($22.47) for the day. While the initial launch will start with 200 scooters, Gogoro CEO Horace Luke told Engadget that it will be quickly expanding beyond that.

One of the reasons Coup partnered with Gogoro is that the technology to track, lock and turn on the scooters is already baked into the bike’s operating system. Coup will take delivery of bikes modified by Gogoro to work with the German company’s cloud and app ecosystem.

Like the Gogoro Smartscooters in Taiwan, the bikes will use the company’s battery swap technology. Instead of charging up the bikes, riders can roll up to a GoStation and replace one or two of the bike’s batteries and be back on the road in less than five minutes.

Gogoro is already planning on launching its Smartscooters for sale in Amsterdam sometime this year. The Coup partnership in Berlin might start off as a way for commuters to catch a quick ride around town, but it also has the potential to make the German city the next European location with a Gogoro showroom.

Source: Coup

Prisma the 10-minute cold brew coffeemaker hits Indiegogo

Prisma, a machine that can make cold brew coffee in just under 10 minutes instead of 12 frickin’ hours, is now on Indiegogo in a bid to raise $150,000. That means you can get one coffeemaker as a perk when you back the project for at least $279. Still expensive for most people who don’t mind any kind of coffee, but for connoisseurs and enthusiasts, that’s $20 off the company’s suggested retail price. We tested Prisma in April back when it was still a prototype called Pique, and it made 750 ml of coffee within only seven minutes. Engadget senior editor Nicole Lee thought the coffee it made was delicious with “hardly any bitter notes.”
The device’s creators planned to get most of their funding from Indiegogo from the very start. While the campaign’s launch was delayed for a month, the coffeemaker’s estimated shipping date is still September 2017.

Source: Indiegogo

Apple Music Streaming Service Launches in Israel

Apple Music started rolling out across Israel today, over a year after the streaming service was launched in 110 countries simultaneously. The splash screen for a three-month free trial began appearing on Macs and iOS devices for a number of users in the country this morning.

Once the free trial is up, Apple’s individual plan starts at 19.90 ILS ($5.21) per month, with a family plan costing 29.90 ILS ($7.83), putting Apple Music at a similar price point as existing services in the country, such as Pelephone Musix.

Rumors that Apple Music was coming to Israel first appeared in November last year, although initially it was thought the service was debuting in the first quarter of 2016.

In June, it was reported that Apple was gearing up to launch the service in Korea next, although the company still has some strict copyright law hurdles to overcome in the country.

Apple’s streaming music service is an evolution of the Beats Music service it acquired in 2014, and has steadily gained listeners over the past 12 months, reaching over 15 million paying subscribers as of WWDC 2016 in June.

Currently it is available in over 100 territories including Africa, the Middle East, India, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, the United States, and Canada.

With iOS 10, Apple is revamping the design and UX of the Apple Music app, aiming to give its content and features a more logical organization, introducing a new section for downloaded music, and making the Connect aspect of the service less prominent.

(Thanks, Jozz!)

Tags: Israel, Apple Music
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Mozilla Announces Firefox 48 for Desktop With Multi-Process Support

Mozilla announced the release of Firefox 48 for desktop yesterday, introducing a long-awaited multi-process feature to the browser along with a handful of interface tweaks.

Firefox 48 is the first version of the browser to include Electrolysis (or e10s), a multi-process feature Mozilla developers have been working on for over seven years.

Multi-process Firefox separates web content and UI processes, so that when a web page is consuming a large amount of processing power, other open tabs, buttons, and menus don’t become unresponsive. Mozilla says it will be activating the feature behind the scenes in a staggered rollout for Firefox 48 users over the next few weeks.

While Safari and Chrome browsers have offered a similar feature for some time, this version of Firefox is also running Mozilla’s Rust language, which is designed to offer performance comparable to C++, but without the latter’s susceptibility to security flaws. Firefox 48 also blocks Adobe Flash Player by default, as the big online media companies like YouTube increasingly switch to HTML5.

Elsewhere, Mozilla has improved the Awesome Bar, which now offers more relevant search suggestions, while the Discovery Pane has been redesigned to make it easier to read. In addition, Reading Lists have been merged into Bookmarks and Synced tabs have been relocated to the History Panel.

Lastly, version 48 also ships security improvements that enhance download protection in Firefox, such as flagging uncommon downloads that appear to mimic popular installation packages for malicious purposes.

Firefox 48 is a free download for the Mac. [Direct link]

Tag: Firefox
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Galaxy S7 edge is the top-selling Android phone so far this year

Samsung managing to sell a boatload of phones shouldn’t come as any surprise, but the company outdid itself in the first half of 2016. According to Strategy Analytics, the Galaxy S7 edge topped shipment charts with 13.3 million units. The Galaxy S7 was third overall with 11.8 million shipments.

Samsung crowded out the top three spots, with the entry-level Galaxy J2 2016 coming in at second place with 13 million shipments. That number speaks volumes of Samsung’s marketing might, as the Galaxy J2 2016 is basically made up of recycled hardware from 2012. Retailing for the equivalent of $150 in countries like India and China, the Galaxy J2 2016 offers a 5-inch 720p display, a Spreadtrum SC8830 SoC (with Cortex A7 cores!), 1.5GB RAM, paltry 8GB of storage, microSD slot, and a 2600mAh battery. Aggressive marketing combined with availability in tier 2 and tier 3 cities allowed Samsung to outdo much better alternatives from the likes of Lenovo, Xiaomi, Huawei, and others.

Anyway, the uptick in sales allowed Samsung to record $7.22 billion in profit, its highest in nearly two years. And it looks like the Galaxy Note 7 will continue the momentum heading into the latter half of the year.

Xiaomi will unveil its Daydream-ready VR headset on Aug. 4

Xiaomi is all set to unveil its first VR headset with Daydream support tomorrow, August 4, in China. The headset uses a phone’s display to drive the experience, similar to that of the Gear VR.

A leaked image of the headset doesn’t reveal much, but with the launch imminent, we’ll know more tomorrow. As for a Daydream-ready phone that can drive the headset, Xiaomi will likely announce new hardware later this year.